hi

what is 'essid' and what is 'key' where can i find it

essid is the SSID of the network you want to connect to, and the key is the WEP key for encryption. Look at the ndiswrapper docs for information on WPA.

hi

i will be connecting to wireless connection which my laptop catches on windows. it's somebody else's connection. so how do i find essid in that case. and where do i find WEP key for enryption if i will be using somebody's else's wireless connection which my win xp happnes to detect

First off, I hope you are aware it's against the law to use someone else's connection without their permission.

Windows XP would show "Connect to <NAME>", where <NAME> is the SSID in question.

Im running fc4 on my compaq and from what I understand FC is not shipped with its kernel source anymore. If they are not shipped does anyone know where I can find them or do you think there is a "yum" command to intall them?

I believe FC4 has a "kernel-sources" package. I don't know the exact command from yum, but I hope that helps.

They changed the name of the package to kernel-sourcecode but I tried using yum for that and it couldn't help me. I did some googling and everything that I saw related to that was pretty manual. I could find an rpm anywhere. I am trying to get to rpmfind.net to see if one is there. I definitely don't want to have to install this manual if they are speaking of recompiling the kernel.

Sites dedicated to Compaq Presario 3000 and Linux
These might interest you then:
http://lists.pcxperience.com/cgi-bin...nfo/linuxr3000
http://prinsig.se/weekee/


To install the kernel source run the command:

yum install kernel-devel
=======================================I
To install ndisrapper, this way I have found is easier since you can’t do it just by running yum install ndiswrapper
Download the rpm from Livna and install as root
Livna has an RPM package for it. Just get the appropriate Livna
release RPM at (choose your arch):
http://rpm.livna.org/fedora/4/i386/R...2.4.noarch.rpm
http://rpm.livna.org/fedora/4/x86_64...2.4.noarch.rpm

then isntall

yum install ndiswrapper
==========================================
Dowload the windows drivers for the wifi card:

Downladed the drivers from compaqs website (http://www.compaq.com)
============================================
Download cabextract rpm from http://dries.ulyssis.org/rpm/fc4-x86_64-dries-rpms.html
and then installed the rpm as root. You can’t run the unzip command on the .exe file so this is the only way.
=========================================
Extracted the .exe file with command cabextract file.exe
=========================================
cd’ into the file that I extracted and run the command:
"ndiswrapper -i file.inf"

Got the following response:
Installing bcmwl5
Forcing parameter IBSSGMode|0 to IBSSGMode|2
Forcing parameter IBSSGMode|0 to IBSSGMode|2
Forcing parameter IBSSGMode|0 to IBSSGMode|2
Forcing parameter IBSSGMode|0 to IBSSGMode|2
Forcing parameter IBSSGMode|0 to IBSSGMode|2
Forcing parameter IBSSGMode|0 to IBSSGMode|2
Forcing parameter IBSSGMode|0 to IBSSGMode|2
Forcing parameter IBSSGMode|0 to IBSSGMode|2
Forcing parameter IBSSGMode|0 to IBSSGMode|2
Forcing parameter IBSSGMode|0 to IBSSGMode|2
Forcing parameter IBSSGMode|0 to IBSSGMode|2
Forcing parameter IBSSGMode|0 to IBSSGMode|2
Forcing parameter IBSSGMode|0 to IBSSGMode|2
Forcing parameter IBSSGMode|0 to IBSSGMode|2
[root@Whistler broadcomwifidriver]# ndiswrapper -l
===============================================
Ran the command to check:
"ndiswrapper -l"

Got the following response:
Installed ndis drivers:
bcmwl5 driver present, hardware present
===============================================
So now I am ready to load the drivers. I try running the command
"modprobe ndiswrapper"

But it doesn’t seem to be able to load. I get a fatal error:
[root@Whistler broadcomwifidriver]# modprobe ndiswrapper
FATAL: Module ndiswrapper not found.
===========================================
So there for, I am not able to proceed with the rest of the instructions which is what follows:
"iwconfig wlan0 essid ***" (****=essid)
"iwconfig wlan0 key ****" (****=key)
"dhcpcd wlan0"

Can anyone help me get past this fatal error?

Thanks

So to get past my fatal error I had to run the command "yum install kernel-module-ndiswrapper-2.6.12-1.1387_FC4" and that seems to have worked. Once I ran that I ran every command after that except for the last one. I now get an error:
[root@Whistler scripts]# dhcpcd wlan0
-bash: dhcpcd: command not found

Is it possible I typed the command wrong? what is the correct one?

When I type dmesg I get the following report:

ndiswrapper: using irq 10
wlan0: ndiswrapper ethernet device 00:00:00:00:00:00 using driver bcmwl5, configuration file 14E4:4320:103C:12F4.5.conf
wlan0: encryption modes supported: WEP, WPA with TKIP, WPA with AES/CCMP

As I saw that I'm wondering also, how do I know I set my key correctly for hexidecimal 128 Bit encryption?

It's amazing how as I finish typing my question I find the answer a little after. I hope it continues that way, this is a first lol. So to end this at least for compaq and FC4 instead of using dhcpd wlan0 i used "dhclient wlan0" and things are fine. I was able to register with my network at home and I was able to get an IP address. In order for me to find out if I have associated my wireless card with me access point for the 128bit key the I enter I just had to run the command iwconfig and if I saw my essid then I know that all was working alright. I guess my only other questions are:

1. Because I am using ndiswrapper does this mean that I have to do this through the command line each time I want to authenticate to a network.

Note: I ask this because when I look at the network cards through the gui this card doesn't show up, just my internal network card that was discovered natively.

2. If I do use authenticate to another essid with another encryption key, will the one that I entered for my network be wiped out? or will it be retained?

Well it looks like I can use kwifi to edit other networks (so it seems) I won't know that till I have another network to join. If anyone knows for sure the answers to my questions, I would still like to have them answered. One other thing I can't seem to figure out is:

Once I am on my wireless card, I am not able to resolve names in my host file anymore. I have about 3 or 4 entries in my host file for other machines in my network that I don't want to have to keep typing an IP for, and now that I switch to my wireless that is now working, I am not able to resolve those name anymore. Is there another alternative I can use for that to?

Well it seems like once I reboot all of my setting s are lost even if I use kwifi to configure them. I did try creating a new device in my network devices configuration but it doesn't seem to see my new card wlan0. Is there away I can get this to appear so that I don't have to keep running the last 3 or 4 commands in a script to get to my network, and also I can resolve my host names (in theory should work)

OK, I finally got an answer for my issue. So once I am done with all of my above steps I needed to run "ndiswrapper -m". What this does is set an alias in the modprobe.conf so that way its always loaded on boot up. If you run it you should see the following:

[root@Whistler ~]# ndiswrapper -m
Adding "alias wlan0 ndiswrapper" to /etc/modprobe.conf
[root@Whistler ~]#

After that go to "Desktop->System Settings->Network" and then add a new wireless device. It should show up.